The 10 Cards Everybody Wants from Pillars of Strength

OP03 Pillars of Strength arrives on Friday, June 30, and not only brings a whole host of new cards with fantastic art to play with, but an entirely new color as well!

Pillars of Strength introduces the color yellow, which brings a lot of life gain and manipulation to the table, all of which is carried thematically by the Big Mom Pirates! I've been eagerly awaiting this set as it fully fleshes out the color pie and really gives more juice to multi-colored strategies.

Whether you're a creative deck-builder like myself or a simple collector who just wants to savor the art, this set has a great deal for you. Let's take a look at the most sought-after One Piece cards in Pillars of Strength.

#10 Wanted Poster Alternate Art Cards

Pillars of Strength introduces something new to OPCG: alternate-art cards from prior sets as special rare pulls. Specifically, we're getting Wanted Poster iterations of ST01-012 Luffy, OP01-051 Kid, ST03-009 Doffy, and ST04-003 Kaido.

I found these hard to rate, as they're a new type of card with such a unique style. It's very possible that they end up much higher than this estimation, but I didn't want to overshoot on such an unknown entity. I do think wherever they land they will all stay relatively close to each other in value, with the possible exception of Luffy, as it's the most powerful card as a gameplay piece and most popular character for collectors. These will be incredible as additions to pre-existing decks, or even simply as collectibles to build a display around.

#9 Charlotte Cracker (Alternate Art)

Cracker may very well be the most important yellow card with the broadest level of playability. I liken this card to what OP02-114 Borsalino is for black or even what OP01-025 Zoro is for red. You will just be very hard pressed to find a yellow deck that doesn't want to play four Cracker given what the color is incentivizing you to do.

A big theme for the color is manipulating the order of your life to better enable cards with Trigger, and Cracker is one of the best things to hit, especially in the early game. Getting a Cracker into play in the first few turns for free is a massive tempo swing that puts your opponent under a great deal of pressure that's hard to deal with as the power bonus from his DON!! ability applies on both players' turns.

#8 Marco (Alternate Art)

The newest iteration of Marco coming to the One Piece Card Game is a huge addition for most red decks as it's one of the most well rounded midrange threats the game has seen to this point. Not only does this card fill the same role as OP02-011 Vista in oppressing smaller characters out of the game, it does so on a much larger body that is incredibly hard to remove.

Just like his blocker counterpart, this Marco can return to the field at the cost of cards from hand—in this case, events. That broader card type gives this card more flexibility to be played in various red shells, as opposed to OP02-018 Marco who was much more reliant on the Whitebeard type. Red now being able to contest smaller creatures without having to sacrifice threat density really streamlines how those decks operate, so this Marco will be widely sought after for those reasons.

#7 Rob Lucci (Alternate Leader)

Here's our first showcase of the new Alternate Leader art template for Pillars of Strength that forgoes a showcase of Oda's art in favor of a brand new pastel contrast against black and white. While art evaluation is always going to be subjective, I think these look quite good and will be just as popular as their manga art predecessors.

In regard to Lucci in particular, this leader gives a home to all of the new CP-type cards coming in the set that give a bit of a new twist on existing black mechanics. Lucci allows for a noticeably more aggressive playstyle than black has previously been capable of, which unlocks something new for the color that many players will appreciate. Given the other tools available in the set I expect Lucci to be a fairly strong player in the new metagame, making this alternate art a desirable find for spikes and collectors alike.

#6 Charlotte Katakuri (Alternate Art)

The value of SEC rare alternate arts has been a bit of a mixed bag the past few sets, but one thing that's usually been a good marker for how much value these cards will retain is their playability. In the case of Katakuri that's a huge plus, because he's likely to be a cornerstone of the top end for every yellow deck. While OP03-114 Charlotte Linlin is the true heavy hitter that will take up some space at the top of the curve, Kata is still an incredibly valuable interactive tool that has a great deal of flexibility.

Returning a card to the bottom of life functionally removes it from the game in most cases, and Kata is able to hit a very wide array of targets with the limit set at 8 cost. While giving your opponent an extra life is a notable downside, there are several things in yellow that actually reward you for being behind on life, and the tempo swing is always going to be valuable regardless. It's also important to note you can return your own cards to your own Life as a defensive measure that also provides some value. Cards with valuable trigger effects like OP03-116 Shirahoshi are the best targets for this line of play, but converting any stray character into an extra life is still inherently valuable.

#5 Portgas.D.Ace (Alternate Leader)

While red has no shortage of powerful leaders, it's spoiled enough to get another one with Ace. OP02-001 Newgate and OP01-001 Zoro have had a stranglehold on red for some time now, but Ace may be powerful enough to cut into that metagame share and give the color more diversity. His passive ability allowing any event to counter fundamentally alters how you can approach deckbuilding. Not only is the passive strong, but there are also a couple very powerful cards from the set in OP03-020 Striker and OP03-016 Flame Emperor that only Ace can play.

Regardless of how this leader ends up performing at the top tables, there will always be demand for Ace cards, especially ones that look as cool as this.

#4 Charlotte Pudding (Alternate Art)

Pudding is going to draw a lot of comparisons to OP01-016 Nami in that the card will be a core searcher for every deck in its color and the art depicts a fan-favorite female character. I won't belabor my ire toward how a non-trivial amount of the community fetishizes these depictions so heavily it's reflected in the card price, but Pudding is actually just a very important card regardless.

Consistency in yellow is a great deal more valuable than it is in red due to how tempo-focused the color is and the sheer power of its most important cards like OP03-114 Big Mom. Bandai even showed their recognition of that fact with Pudding being the first searcher to only look at 4 cards rather than 5. Even with that slight "nerf" this card is still massively impactful and will be a mainstay in every yellow deck for the foreseeable future.

#3 Nami (Alternate Leader)

This Nami leader is a very unique card as it gives the One Piece Card Game its first alternate win condition. It's such a divergent and powerful playstyle that it's actually responsible for half of the game's first banlist in OP02-052 Cabaji. While the deck is still perfectly functional without that card, its absence does incentivize you to try and connect with cards like OP03-047 Zeff or OP03-041 Usopp to enable the win condition. That said, most of the gameplay is still much more aligned with a non-interactive combo deck, so if that kind of thing appeals to you there is now a leader that enables that play style in the OPCG.

It's also worth noting that the art is evocative of a moment during Arlong Park where One Piece became One Piece for a lot of people, so that alongside Nami's inherent popularity makes me believe this will be one of the most valuable cards in the set.

#2 Charlotte Katakuri (Alternate Leader)

All of these strong new yellow cards need a leader to be played with, and in most cases that leader is going to be Charlotte Katakuri. This leader plays into what yellow wants to do incredibly well by setting up triggers in their own life to get ahead on tempo, all while applying immense pressure with constant 6000 attacks.

Competitive players are generally drawn to the type of agency Katakuri gives you, especially over zones of the game that you normally can't manipulate like life. I expect this leader to be a very strong player in the metagame, especially after people get more comfortable with the new cards and develop a better understanding of how to build and play with yellow. Not to mention, Katakuri is an incredibly popular antagonist, and this art looks incredible.

#1 Sogeking (Manga Alternate)

Every set of OPCG has one pinnacle chase card with a manga background, and Pillars of Strength is obviously no exception. This time around we get Sogeking (Sniperking), Usopp's super hero alternate identity that he uses to help try and find his confidence and sense of self worth after having it shattered. A lot of people identify with the themes of that part of the story and may have some attachment to this card because of it, but this is also a fairly powerful card in its own right. It doesn't fully power creep ST03-009 Doflamingo, but it will likely be more appealing in a lot of spots, especially in OP03-040 Nami decks.

That said, "playability" has so far had little impact on the value of these manga alternate arts, given that they are primarily collectors items and have stayed relatively close to one another. Sogeking might underperform the manga alt arts of previous One Piece sets due to the featured character being a bit of a joke, but likely not by an amount that matters too much. Opening any manga alternate is always going to be one of the most exciting things that can happen to you while engaging with the One Piece Card Game, and I hope you get to experience it.